


Lucky

by CastleriggCircle (BanjoOnMyKnee)



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Abbie Lives, Black Cat - Freeform, F/M, Halloween, Heartwarming, Ichabbie Holloween, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, Pre-Relationship, Screw all of Season 3 but the finale in particular, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:45:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8400445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BanjoOnMyKnee/pseuds/CastleriggCircle
Summary: Wherein we discover that Crane is a cat person...





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in an AU Season 3 where Crane and Abbie are housemates, but that otherwise has nothing in common with what was televised. (I am FULL of ideas for what Season 3 SHOULD have been, but you don't really need my thoughts on what the Horsemen of Famine and Pestilence would've been like or how awesome Big Ash would've been as a regular character to follow this story.)

Two nights before Halloween, and Abbie had sent Crane on what should’ve been a simple errand—get four bags of candy to replace the ones he’d found and worked his way through during the last two weeks of late-night gaming sessions. Ichabod Crane, cranky grandpa crossed with fifteen-year-old boy.

OK, that wasn’t quite fair. Most cranky grandpas and self-absorbed teenagers didn’t prepare gourmet-quality dinners on a regular basis, nor cheerfully do ninety percent of the housework or happily binge-watch the Great British Baking Show and the last two decades’ worth of Jane Austen adaptations with their housemate. (He was partial to _Persuasion,_ while she preferred the _Pride and Prejudice_ with Colin Firth.) Really, she liked having Crane around every day. He was good company, even if it felt like their lives had turned into a grown-up version of playing house.

But not an _adult_ version. Not yet, anyway. There were moments. Heated glances. Times when she got into the shower five minutes after he left it and was overwhelmed and turned on by the clean man-smell of him lingering in the steamy air. Still, Abbie was in no hurry. He wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was she, not with five more years of tribulations in front of them. They had time to take things slow, if and when they decided to take them anywhere at all.

She wished he’d hurry up with the candy, though. Their pizza was getting cold, and she was ready to curl up on the couch with her housemate, friend, and fellow Witness battling the forces of evil for beer, pepperoni with extra cheese, and _Bride and Prejudice._ But no candy. Abbie was going to hide it in her lingerie drawer—Crane might accidentally linger over her delicates if she left them in the laundry room, but he was nowhere near pervy enough to go rooting through her dresser.

At last she heard the car pull into her driveway and Crane’s familiar footsteps coming up the porch steps. She opened the door to save him juggling his key and the shopping bags—and gaped to see him flush-faced and flashing-eyed, as full of outraged indignation as she’d ever seen him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she stepped back to let him in.

“Such villainy!” He set his bags on the kitchen counter with an emphatic thump. “Such miscreants. Such wanton cruelty in youth.”

Abbie rubbed her neck. It was the time of year for teenaged pranks. “Slow down. Tell me what happened.”

He took a deep, steadying breath. “When I was passing the park on the way home, I saw half a dozen figures in black robes standing around a fire. Naturally I stopped to investigate.”

“You should’ve called me,” she interjected.

“And so I would have done, had it been a truly supernatural threat,” he assured her. Wait, was there something moving under his coat, on the side where she knew he had an inner pocket? “Though the youths did intend to summon a demon, I am persuaded they knew nothing of the reality of such matters. However, they were far gone enough in perfidy that I found them on the verge of sacrificing an innocent life.”

At that, a plaintive _Mew_ piped from beneath Crane’s coat.

“A black cat,” Abbie said flatly. She’d never been called on such a case herself, but they got them every few years at the P.D. “Idiots. Assholes.”

“Indeed, Lieutenant.” He reached into his coat and drew out a tiny, perfectly black kitten with bright, greeny-gold eyes. “So naturally I rescued him and sent his tormentors home with a flea in their ear.”

Abbie’s skin prickled, and she prayed the kitten didn’t have fleas in his ears or anywhere else in his sleek, dark fur. “Good job. We’ll take him to the pound tomorrow, and I’m sure someone will give him a home soon. He’s a cutie.” They’d figure out something to do with him for the night. Kittens liked milk, right? That took care of nutrition and hydration. And they didn’t have a litter box, but maybe if they put some potting soil in a dish, the little creature would get the idea.

“The pound?” Crane’s eyes rounded, at once affronted and imploring. More like a five-year-old than a fifteen-year-old, with that pleading look. “I’d hoped to keep him. A house is more homelike, with a cat about. And no doubt he’ll grow into a fine mouser, in due course.”

“We don’t have mice,” she pointed out. “And if we did, I’d buy mousetraps. Besides, I’ve never had a pet.”

“Did you never wish for one?”

She’d wanted a puppy, when she was little and Mama still seemed stable. Afterward…well, her first foster home had had an enormous tank full of tropical fish, but they hadn’t trusted her to feed them. She’d watched them swim, almost hypnotized by the endless back and forth. Another place hadn’t bothered with locks on the doors because they’d had a big Doberman named Remington. He’d been well-trained, so she hadn’t exactly been afraid of him, but he wasn’t a nice cuddly pet to play with.

A cat, though. She’d never thought of herself as a cat person. She hadn’t thought of Crane as one, either, but there he was cuddling this kitten against his chest, nestled in one big hand purring away while Crane scritched between his ears. Cats were low-maintenance, right? It wouldn’t be fair to have a dog with their unpredictable Witness schedule, but you could leave a cat alone as long as it had food, water, and litter. And it would make Crane happy. 

She stretched out a cautious finger to stroke the tiny head. The kitten purred louder and narrowed its eyes to sleepy green slits. “OK. We’ll keep him.”

“ _Thank_ you, Lieutenant. You’ll never regret it.”

Abbie hoped he was right.

A few hours later, all three of them sat together on the sofa, the movie watched, the pizza three-quarters eaten. The kitten had eagerly lapped up a saucer of milk set out for him on the coffee table, then climbed into Abbie’s lap and fallen asleep, a soft, warm little bundle of life.

Crane had edged closer—the better to keep an eye on his new pet, no doubt—and somehow they’d ended up with his arm around her shoulders and her leaning against him. That had never happened before, though on two prior occasions she’d stretched out full-length on the couch, her feet in his lap. His foot rubs were to die for.

“I bet you had lots of pets, growing up on a country estate like you did,” she said.

“Not as many as you’d think. Papa kept a full kennel, but they were foxhounds trained to the chase, not lapdogs to be cosseted and given the run of the house. I did love my pony when I was a boy, and I had a fine bay hunter once I was old enough for a proper horse. Such a turn of speed as he had, and ever eager to take a fence…but the cats were always my favorites. I made friends with all the stable mousers, and our cook kept the plumpest, most satisfied calico you ever saw in the kitchen. Her name was Dulcinea, and never did a cat have a louder purr…” 

He smiled over his memories, and not for the first time Abbie marveled that she felt so utterly at home with someone born and bred for such a completely different world. “This cat needs a name,” she said.

“Hm. Perhaps Hamilton or Alexander?”

“As in, _Martha Washington named her feral tomcat after him?_ ” Abbie grinned and shook her head. “Nope. We’re taking this boy to the vet and getting him fixed as soon as he’s old enough. He’s going to be completely _unreliable_ with the ladies.”

Crane chuckled. “A wise choice, and one that will spare us the sounds of feline love by night. What would you choose to call him?”

She considered. “What about Lucky? Because he’s lucky you rescued him.”

“And lucky that you welcomed him into your home. A perfect choice.”

“All right, then. Lucky Mills-Crane it is.” She wasn’t sure what had prompted her to give the kitten a last name— _their_ last names, like they were all the same family and this was a permanent arrangement—and she was glad Crane didn’t comment on it. But she didn’t complain when he drew her closer to him and leaned his head against hers. She wasn’t in any hurry, but she liked where this was going.


End file.
